Korea's need for energy conservation and alternative energy is greater than for any other nation. Korea imports more than 97% of its total energy consumption and ranks 10th in the world in terms of energy consumption. Developing hydrogen energy technology has great potential to cope with Korea's energy security and to establish Korea's hydrogen economy. In this study, we analysed the potential of Korea to be competitive in development of hydrogen energy technology using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach. In this paper, two scenario analyses are presented: in the first, the R&D budget is a criterion and in the second it is not. The results show that Korea is the sixth most competitive nation because of the low score for infrastructure required for hydrogen technology. In addition, compared with US results for both scenarios, patents, papers and proceedings, R&D budgets, and infrastructure for hydrogen technology are inferior to the US, which is ranked in first place for this sector. Korean policymakers have to concentrate on those sectors to strengthen Korea's competitiveness in the development of hydrogen energy technology. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.